Those surreal scenes and others played out on Thursday in parts of central Palm Beach County, where a stalled storm and a record-breaking nine inches of rain left neighborhoods along Haverhill Road and Military Trail under water up to two feet deep.

``My Florida room is completely under water _ you could float boats in it,'' said Wanda McDonald, 43, a teacher who tried to part a runoff sea on Pineaire Lane with her Econoline van. She did not get past the stop sign at the end of the street before her vehicle died.

The rains, which also dropped more than 6 inches in Boynton Beach, overflowed a canal along Okeechobee Boulevard and plugged drainage inlets in streets with debris.

Both caused the floodwaters to climb higher than locals said they had ever seen.

About 60 sheriff's deputies were dispatched to rescue stranded motorists, check on water-locked residents and cordon off the most flooded streets. Haverhill from Belevere Road to Community Drive and a stretch of Military Trail were closed for hours.

As waters began to recede in the late morning and early afternoon, reports that more rain was on the way worried some people as they peered down their boulevard bayous.

Today's forecast calls for a 30 percent chance of afternoon showers or thunderstorms. The outlook for Saturday is cloudy with an even greater chance of rain, the National Weather Service said.

The cause: a slow-moving weather front that has drifted back across South Florida. A cold front is expected to reach the area on Saturday and begin a clearing trend on Sunday.

Flooded residents said they suspected faulty drainage systems in their communities.

County road and bridge crews and Lake Worth Drainage District workers labored throughout the morning to unclog blocked stormwater conduits.

Water managers, however, said nature is chiefly to blame for the predicament.

Road drains in the flooded area are designed to whisk away at most 5.5 inches of rain and were just overwhelmed, said South Florida Water Management District spokesman John Neuharth. One district gauge registered 8 inches in a 12-hour period near the worst flooding, he said.

``That's too much water at one time,'' he said.

The brunt of the rain fell on pockets of the county. It did not elevate already high water levels in western marshes or overburden South Florida's regional drainage system, water managers said.

``For us, it's not serious. But that's hard to say to people wading knee-deep in water,'' Neuharth said.

Cold, muddy water spilled over the rim of retention ponds and spread knee-high across the grounds of Bear Lakes Middle School and nearby neighborhoods.

Egrets and ducks frolicked and waded in what was once the school's parking lot and playground.

Cars were packed onto the islands of dry land, where owners were bailing them out.

``We're living up to our name of Bear Lakes today,'' Principal Andrea Peppers said.

Only one bus of about 30 made it to school, and it was sent back out without unloading. Twelve students were dropped off by parents, and those parents were called back to retrieve them.

Teachers who made it to school became the rescuers of motorists stranded on Shenandoah Drive, Peppers said. Some motorists waded to the school to call AAA, Peppers said.

One parent watching water creep into her house had to climb out her window to bring her three children to West Gate Elementary School.

``They were just horrified [by the flooding) when they got here,'' said Nancy Gerace, a parent liason at the school.

Standing water pooled in the morning like moats in front of the school's portable classrooms, said Principal Thais Villanueva.

Some who awoke to their newfound waterworld made the best of the situation.

Chris Hofmann, 15, paddled down 49th Drive North in a boat and wetsuit and helped a neighbor tote his groceries from a corner store to his doorstep.

In a community off Haverhill Road, others broke out water skis and slid around the streets towed by a Jeep.

Deputies set up a command post at Okeechobee Boulevard and Haverhill Road; officers were tapped from various substations in the county to work the flood zones.

A sheriff's airboat roamed around north of Okeechobee Boulevard along Haverhill Road and flooded sides streets, searching for electrical problems and flooded homes, said Sheriff's Lt. John Carroll.

Deputies also helped pull people from stalled cars, delivering one stranded teacher to 80 waiting children at the Academy for Little People in West Palm Beach, he said.

A sign left on the windshield of a black Honda CRX marooned on a shoulder of Haverhill Road said it all: ``Getting Help.''